The present invention relates to electrochemical devices known as coulometers and more specifically to a coulometer-type instrument that is capable of measuring and indicating periods of use by integrating the total electric current that has been conducted through an electrical circuit.
Coulometers are described in detail in Lester Corrsin's U.S. Pat. No. Re, 27,556 entitled "Operating Time Indicator" and Curtis Beusman's U.S. Pat. No. 3,193,763 entitled "Electrolytic Coulometric Current Integrating Device", both of which are incorporated herein by reference.
The device described in these patents includes a tubular body of nonconductive material having a bore therethrough that supports two columns of a liquid metal such as mercury. The adjacent innermost ends of these columns are separated by a small volume of electrolyte with which they make conductive contact. The outermost ends of the liquid metal columns contact conductive leads that connect the instrument to the source of electric current that is to be measured. In accordance with Faraday's Law, when current flows through the instrument, liquid metal is electroplated from the anode column to the cathode column causing the anode to decrease in length and the cathode to increase an equal amount, the change in column length being directly proportional to the total electric charge passed through the instrument.
Readout of the total current through the instrument may be made by comparing the length of a column against a calibrated scale. Typical visual readout devices are described in the above-identified Corrsin patent and in Beusman's U.S. Pat. No. 3,343,083 entitled "Nonself-Destructive Reversible Electrochemical Coulometer".